In the show, OOO's medals felt like the most natural gimmick to me due to the irregular nature he collected medals in. Aside from Sagohzo's entrance and to an extent the Putotyra medals, they felt a lot more realistic the way they were obtained and introduced rather than a vehicle through which they advertised toys.

But if you were to ask me from an aesthetic and toy standpoint... I just adore the Decadriver. It's so sleek, so simple, the cards are really nice themselves; and it does one of my favourite things in a gimmick -- the belt has a little 'window' which focuses in on one part of the gimmick item. It's something a few belts like the W ones and the Ghost driver do too, but Decade and Mach's drivers are by far my favourite implementation of it.

Though, uh, I'm not... entirely sure why Decade's is here? I think most people would define Heisei Phase 2 as starting with W rather than him.

Special shoutout to the Gashats though for the exact same reasons everyone's said here. They look really nice to hold; I've gotta get my hands on one of them at some point. I should see if anyone's selling a cheap Jungle OOO...

Honestly, I consider collectibles one of my least liked things about Kamen Riders. There's to much of it and it's helped contribute to the sound diarrhea coming from the belts these days. This element of Kamen Rider has killed my enjoyment of more than one show.

That said, I do enjoy the Lockseeds, mostly because it's in the happy middle where they have plenty of sounds, but they're not to overbearing or to long. Also the popping of the lock is a satisfying fidget toy even without sounds.

So yeah, I generally prefer not to have them, but if I must, Lockseeds are fun.

With a number of the franchises such as OOO, Fourze, Wizard, Drive and this year’s Kamen Rider Ghost, the collectibles themselves did not contain any electronics or sounds in the slightest. All the lights and sound effects were contained within the belt and all that these collectibles did was “unlock” sounds in the belt. Just like with ULC for games, this left many fans (me) feeling indignant as even after buying the belt, they had to literally buy even more merchandise to unlock sounds that they had already paid for.

Kamen Rider W’s Gaia Memories, another hit with fans, contained lights and sounds of their own. Buying a new Gaia Memory would reward you with something legitimately new, add to your experience and leave you with the feeling that it was worth the extra expense.

Kamen Rider Gaim’s Lockseeds took the Gaia Memories one step further. First of, design-wise, they are far more distinctive than Gaia Memories, giving them each a more unique identity, making them easily distinguishable from each other. While the Gaia Memories only differed in terms of stickers and plastic color, the Lockseeds have a translucent, molded and painted plastic face, 2 different inner face stickers and different unlocking mechanisms depending on the Lockseed. For the sounds, the Gaia Memories only had one special attack each while the Lockseeds have 3 unique ones. Unlike the re-used “Maximum Drive” call, all the attack names like “Sparking” and “Squash” are rerecorded for each Lockseed. They even have extra sounds that can be played by themselves by pressing the button on the back. These range from Inves Game sounds to bonus voice clips from the show’s actors. Let’s not forget that the Lockseeds also have an on-off switch that the Gaia Memories did not, with a unique activation sound to boot!

Within the show, each Lockseed is meaningful. For Switches, Rings and Shift Cars, they had a ton of superfluous abilities that were one-time-use only and were made for very contrived situations. In Kamen Rider Gaim, each Lockseed summoned a unique armor and weapon set. They were legitimate transformations and forms. Due to having a large cast of Riders, they had an excuse to justify the many different arms and most of the arms had a good amount of screen-time. Yes, there were ones like Kiwi that didn’t see much use, but they were few in number compared to the absurd number of Switches, Rings and Shift Cars that fell by the wayside. The arms and weapons were generic enough to be applicable in a variety of situations but unique enough so that they kept being re-used even in later episodes when the time called for them. For instance, Baron would always switch to Mango when he faced enemies with a harder shell.

From a production standpoint, as each Lockseed contains its own lights and sounds, just like Gaia Memories, the producers weren’t limited to what was pre-recorded into the belt. If they chose to, they could have made changes to the upcoming toys. They’re even free to produce Lockseeds for as long as they are profitable. For fans, this adds to the belt’s longevity and worthwhile nature of its purchase.

Hard pressed, since Rings were kind of the easiest to go with. Not a lot of fuss, and most of the presentation was in being able to just pull a new ring out. I did go with Lock Seeds though because they had the best sounds built in, and the most interaction.